Each of Mr. Manson’s puzzle books creates a new genre of puzzles and The Rails I Tote is no different. Each of the 45 puzzles in Rails I Tote has a wildly imaginative story on one page and a beautiful illustration on the facing page.
From the Introduction:
“Each of the pictures in this book illustrates two things, one being, of course, the tale that accompanies it. The other, hidden subject of he picture is a simple word game called a Spoonerism.
A Spoonerism results when the initial sounds of any two words are transposed, resulting in two different words. The “Parched Stork” becomes “Starched Pork”; everyone’s favorite “Peas and Carrots,” is transformed into “Keys and Parrots”; and “Legal Beverage” is changed into “Beagle Leverage.”
[...] To help you even more; the story contains a reference to the answer, and the title of the story is, likewise, a reference to the answer.”
Even though this is the lightest of Manson’s puzzle books in terms of difficulty, it is none the less a considerable challenge. The spoonerisms are not only well hidden, but are entertainingly hidden. Manson manages to connect such disperse ideas as “eating breakfast” and “an eel infested castle moat” in a single puzzle. Despite the wild imagery and surreal stories, you will over and over say to yourself, why didn’t see that before!
- Images and quoted text copyright 1987 by Christopher Manson
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The Rails I Tote is out of print but used copies can be purchased here:
Guys, tell me where I can download/buy the book? It is not available for purchase on Amazon, and I could not find a single digital copy (pdf / djvu) on the entire Internet.
I’m very excited to play with this. I managed to find a copy for $6 at a thrift store!
Hey, Meg. I hope this is a fair question, but could you please share a digital copy of the book with me? I understand that this is borderline copyright infringement, but the book simply isn’t available for purchase online.
You’ll probably have better luck coordinating illegal activity on the MazeCast discord than here. Those people have no scruples whatsoever.
It’s amazing how much the context of a question can be ignored when the urge to write something caustic gets the better of one. Again, the book is not available for purchase online from any website, and traveling from the other side of the world to a New York library to borrow a print copy is not the best plan. Against this background, accusing someone of illegal activity and shaming someone else’s community is extremely superficial and hot-tempered.
That’s just vewatkin’s abysmal humor! We all object to his tone ;) He’s actually one of the founders of MazeCast.
how dare you
Is there any other book like maze out there?
There are books that are like Maze in some respects. I don’t know of any others that recreate the central premise and puzzle density/style. White Raven doesn’t seem to either, and he has made a pretty extensive search, I think. There are other “solve the riddle” picture books, like Kit Williams’s Masquerade and, uh….I don’t know, I tried a lot of them, but they have always been some combination of aesthetically unappealing, unfair, and full of content that is 90-some percent irrelevant to the riddle.
Okay, so no doors, but do you explore around in it?
No, the puzzles are all independent.
Does this have rooms like maze does?